US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Peter Lemkin]

AARON MATÉ: The U.S. government has begun the process of charging Edward Snowden with disclosing classified information after he leaked a trove of secret documents outlining the NSA's surveillance programs. The FBI has already questioned Snowden's relatives and associates. Snowden is a 29-year-old computer technician who formerly worked for the CIA. He reportedly turned over thousands of documents to Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian newspaper, as well as to The Washington Post. Only a few have been published so far. His current whereabouts are unknown. Snowden flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong on May 20th. On Monday, he reportedly checked out of his Hong Kong hotel one day after The Guardian posted a video of him explaining his decision to leak the information.
AMY GOODMAN: Response to Edward Snowden's actions has been mixed. On Capitol Hill, Senator Dianne Feinstein accused Snowden of committing treason. Meanwhile, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg called Snowden a hero, writing, quote, "In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA materialand that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago," he said. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has also praised Edward Snowden.

JULIAN ASSANGE: Edward Snowden is a hero who has informed the public about one of the most serious, serious events of the decade, which is the creeping formulation of a mass surveillance state that has now coopted the courts, corrupted the courts in the United States, made them secret, made them produce orders which violate U.S. constitutional protections to nearly the entire population, and then, if that wasn't enough, has embroiled U.S. high-tech companies like Google, Yahoo!, Skype, Facebook, etc., to extend that surveillance all across the worldthe amount of collections from the United States alone revealed to be more than 2.4 billion in the month of March alone. And that is something that I and John Perry Barlow and many other journalists and civil libertarians have been campaigning on for a long time, so it's very pleasing to see such clear and concrete proof presented to the public.

AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange speaking on Sky News. Up until a few weeks ago, Edward Snowden worked as a systems administrator inside the NSA's office in Hawaii. His employer was not the U.S. government, but a military contractor called Booz Allen Hamilton. Over the past decade, the U.S. intelligence community has relied increasingly on the technical expertise of private firms such as Booz Allen, SAIC, the Boeing subsidiary Narus and Northrop Grumman. Former NSA director Michael V. Hayden has described these firms as a, quote, "digital Blackwater." According to the journalist Tim Shorrock, about 70 percent of the national intelligence budget is spent on the private sector.
AARON MATÉ: The leaks by Edward Snowden have also raised questions over who has access to the nation's biggest secrets. According to The Washington Post, authorities are unsure how a contract employee at a distant NSA satellite office was able to obtain a highly classified copy of an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. During his interview with The Guardian, Edward Snowden claimed he had the power to spy on anyone, including the president.

EDWARD SNOWDEN: Any analyst at any time can target anyone, any selector anywhere. Where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that that analyst is empowered with. Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president, if I had a personal email.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Edward Snowden and the privatized world of intelligence, we're joined by Tim Shorrock, author of the book Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence_. He has just written a piece for data/">Salon.com entitled "Meet the Contractors Analyzing Your Private Data: Private Companies Are Getting Rich Probing Your Personal Information for the Government. Call It Digital Blackwater." In fact, Tim Shorrock, explain who exactly called it "digital Blackwater."
TIM SHORROCK: Well, this was said by Michael V. Hayden, who used to be the director of the NSA and was the director of the NSA when President Bush began the warrantless surveillance program back in 2001 right after 9/11. He has moved on from intelligence, the intelligence agencies, to become an executive with Chertoff Group, which is a large consulting company in Washington that works very closely with intelligence agencies and corporations advising them on cybersecurity and advising them on just basically security issues. And so, you know, he has cashed himself in and is making lots of money himself in this industry.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to the former NSA and CIA director, General Michael Hayden, who, as you said, oversaw much of the privatization of the NSA from 1999 to 2005. This is him speaking in 2011.

MICHAEL HAYDEN: We may come to a point where defense is more actively and aggressively defined even for theeven for the private sector and what is permitted there is something we would never let the private sector do in physical space.

UNIDENTIFIED: That's interesting.

MICHAEL HAYDEN: I mean, you lookwell, I mean, let me really throw out a bumper sticker for you here: How about a digital Blackwater? OK? I mean, we have privatized certain defense activities, even in physical space. And now you've got a new domain in which we don't have any paths trampled down in the forest in terms of what it is we expect the government or will allow the government to do. And in the past, in our history, when that has happened, private sector expands to fill the empty space. I'm not quite an advocate for that, but these are the kinds of things that are going to be put into play here very, very quickly.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the former head of the CIA and the NSA, General Michael Hayden. Tim Shorrock, talk about Booz Allen, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Edward Snowden and what this relationship is all about between Booz Allen and the NSA.
TIM SHORROCK: Well, the most astonishing thing I found in the articles in The Guardian and the revelation that he was from Booz Allen was that, in fact, Booz Allen Hamilton is involved at thebasically the darkest levels, the deepest levels of U.S. intelligence. If Mr. Snowden had access to these kinds of documents, such as these PRISM documents about surveillance on the Internet, as well as this FISA court order, that means practically anyone in Booz Allen who is in intelligence working for the NSA has access to the same kinds of documents. And American people should really know that now we have conclusive proof that these private-sector corporations are operating at the highest levels of intelligence and the military. I think that's the bottom line here. It's not curiousyou know, the question is not why this low-level person at Booz Allen got these documents; the question is: Why is Booz Allen involved at this level of intelligence?
AARON MATÉ: Tim Shorrock, so, according to The New York Times, it's gone so far that even the process of granting security clearances is often handled by contractors. So, can you talk about the duties that contractors are performing for the government on these intelligence matters?
TIM SHORROCK: Well, first of all, I want to comment on some of these stories in The New York Times and other newspapers. I mean, that's an old story. Everyone knows that, you know, the security clearances is done by contractors. That's been true for a decade or more. And, you know, Booz Allen has been around for years and years and years. The question is: Why haven't these newspapers covered this? They cover intelligence as if there's no private-sector involvement at all. And suddenly, they hear that Booz Allen is involved, and suddenly we have all these stream of articles about privatized intelligence. Well, welcome to the world of "digital Blackwater," as Hayden calls it.
And, you know, specifically on Booz Allen and what these companies do, I mean, you know, theyas I wrote in my book, Spies for Hire, they do everything from, you know, CIA intervention in other countries; JSOC, you know, when it does raids, contractors are involved in finding out where people they attack are and determining the mapping and all that and the imagery to make sure that pilots and drones can hit the right peopleor the wrong people. And they're involved in the Defense Intelligence Agency. They're involved in all military agencies that do intelligence. They do everything. They do everything that the government does.
AMY GOODMAN: What's wrong with that?
TIM SHORROCK: What's wrong with that is that it's a for-profit operation. Many times, you haveinside these agencies, you have contractors overseeing other contractors, contractors, you know, giving advice to the agency about how to set its policies, what kind of technology to buy. And, of course, they have relationships with all the companies that they work with or that they suggest to the leaders of U.S. intelligence.
And I think, you know, a terrible example of this is, you know, a few months ago, I wrote a cover story for The Nation magazine about the NSA whistleblowers that you've had on this show a few timesTom Drake, Bill Binney and the other twoand, you know, they blew the whistle on a huge project called Trailblazer that was contracted out to SAIC that was a complete failure. And this project was designed, from the beginning, by Booz Allen, Northrop Grumman and a couple other corporations who advised the NSA about how to acquire this project, and then decided amongst themselves to give it to SAIC, and then SAIC promised the skies and never produced anything, and the project was finally canceled in 2005.
And it's very ironic that Michael Hayden says he's not sure about, you know, this privatization. I mean, he's the one who set this whole privatization in place. He's the one who did it. He's the one who pulled the trigger on it. And he's responsible for this vast privatization of NSA, which, I have to say, began before 9/11.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Booz Allen Hamilton in terms of its other clients? Here it has this remarkable access to information. You know, as Edward Snowden said in his video statement, which we ran yesterday on Democracy Now!, he could wiretap almost anyone, at his level, and that a lot of people could. The information that people like Snowden get, can Booz Allen then share this information with other corporate clients it has?
TIM SHORROCK: Well, I don't know that for sure, because it's very difficult to penetrate these companies, but I don't think so. I think what they do is they operate just like the intelligence community does, like theyou know, the NSA shares the information with other agencies. Of course, the NSA collects, is the main collector for the government in terms of signals intelligence, what comes over the Internet and telephone and cellphones and all that, and they pass that on to other agencies that request it. It goes to the president of the United States. It goesit goes to all the high levels of the State Department and other agencies that need to know what's going on both around the world and inside the United States. And so, I doubt that they would pass it to other corporations, but they certainly have their hands in it.
And I think if Booz Allen Hamilton is doing this and has access to such high-level documents, then you know that these other companies do, tooSAIC, Northrop Grumman, all of the companies you named at the top of the show. They have the same kinds of access, and they dothey do very much the same kinds of work that Booz Allen does. And I think it'slike I said before, it's just about time we recognized that this is really, you know, Intelligence Inc. This is ayou know, 70 percent of it is a for-profit operation. It's a joint venture between government agencies and the private sector, and the private sector makes money off of it. They make big profits from this.
AARON MATÉ: Tim, I'm wondering if you can talk about some moreabout these companies, specifically Narus and Palantir.
TIM SHORROCK: Well, Narus is the company that basically makes the technology that allows agencies, as well as corporations and telecom companies, to intercept traffic coming in, telecom traffic coming in, you know, from the outside, from other countries, on fiber-optic cables. And they have this incredible capacity to process information. And, you know, a few yearright afteryou know, when this story started blowing up in theafter The New York Times blew the story on surveillance, warrantless surveillance, you know, there was this whistleblower at AT&T, this technician, who found that Narus equipment had been attached to AT&T's switching center in San Francisco, and they were using this equipment to divert the entirethe entire traffic, all the wholethe wholeeverything that was coming in, they diverted that to a secret room, and that went right into the NSA's servers.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Mark Klein.
TIM SHORROCK: And thosethat's what Narusthat's what Narus technology does. And so, you know, that's the key
AMY GOODMAN: And Narus is owned by Boeing?
TIM SHORROCK: Boeing. It was bought by Boeing. It was actuallythe company originated, actually, in Israel. You know, Israel has a very powerful equivalent to the National Security Agency. And it came out ofit came out of Israel, and then they brought their technology here, and they were very involved in the wiretapping right afterright after 9/11. And then Boeing bought them. And, of course, Boeing itself is a major intelligence contractor, through that company, and, you know, they used tothey own a company that used to transport a lot of these prisoners around that the CIA captured overseas.
AMY GOODMAN: And Palantir?
TIM SHORROCK: And you asked aboutyou asked about Palantir. It's a Silicon Valley company that basically does data mining and mapping out relationships. I mean, all thisas I said in the Salon article yesterday, all this information and all this data that comes into the NSA has to be analyzed, and that's what these companies they do that they hire. You know, they takeyou know, NSA stores all this data. We know the story about this big Utah data center that's just about to open. And they download it all there, and then they can go back to it. They can go back to it a day later, or they can go back to it months later or years later. And that's one of the things that Mr. Snowden talked about in his interviews, was how they go back and analyze this data.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about The Guardian in its reports calling the NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who fed them information, "whistleblower." But the Associated Press says it would instead use terms like "source" or "leaker." In a memo sent to reporters, it said, quote, "A whistle-blower is a person who exposes wrongdoing. It's not a person who simply asserts that what he has uncovered is illegal or immoral. Whether the actions exposed by Snowden and [Bradley] Manning constitute wrongdoing is hotly contested. ... Sometimes whether a person is a whistle-blower can be established only some time after the revelations, depending on what wrongdoing is confirmed or how public opinion eventually develops," unquote. What do you make of what the AP is saying? I mean, of course, they change theirtheir definitions over time. We just saw them drop the word "illegal" when it comes to describing people.
TIM SHORROCK: Well, I think it's kind of semantics. I mean, you know, he has blown the whistle on some actions that the NSA is doing, some programs the NSA is doing, that may be unconstitutional. And I think, you know, that's why Daniel Ellsberg has had so much praise for him. I mean, he's showing the underside of the war on terror, the underside of the surveillance state. And I think, in that sense, he's a real whistleblower. You know, perhaps the difference between him and, say, the NSA FourTom Drake and Bill Binney and the othersis that, you know, the NSA Four did not leak information. I mean, they reported it through the chain of command, or they tried to. And what's unfortunate was, you know, they tried to do this, and then they were caught up in an investigation of who leaked to The New York Times about the NSA surveillance program, and they were persecuted and investigated, and Tom Drake was actually indicted under the Espionage Act and charged with being a spy. Those charges were ridiculous, and the case completely collapsed, but nevertheless, that's what happened to them. So, Snowden maybe looked at that and decided, you know, he's justyou know, why go through channels? I mean, I think if we had a system where people could actually expose wrongdoing and without fear of being persecuted, that he may not have broken the law. And I think we need to look very carefully at that, because we need to protect people like this who want to expose wrongdoing.
AARON MATÉ: Tim Shorrock, is it harder for Snowden, as a private contractor, to try to blow the whistle than it would have been had he been working directly for the government?
TIM SHORROCK: Well, perhaps so. I'm not sure what the difference in how they might prosecute somebody like this, but clearly, from what's being said, you know, today and what was said yesterday, they're going after him. In fact, I've heard they may charge him under the Espionage Act. So, that's what they would do to a government official, as well, or an intelligence officer who leaked the same kind of thing. So, I don't really think it's that much different. And like I said at the top of the show, you know, what reallywhat really amazed me was the fact that Booz Allen Hamilton, as a corporation, is involved at this level of intelligence. It's not that this guy was just a low-level employee. It's that this company is involved, and you have the private sector at that level of NSA.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think should be done differently? I mean, there's two different issues here: One is the level of privatization of the military and intelligence, and the other is what Edward Snowden has actually revealed about what the U.S. government is doing with our information.
TIM SHORROCK: Well, what should we do about specifically what?
AMY GOODMAN: In terms of these private intelligence contractors and the access they have.
TIM SHORROCK: Well, you know, there's been a process underway where the agencies are supposed to be doing, you know, inventories of the contractors and who theywhat they do. And I thinkyou know, there was a report I saw recently from the inspector general of the Pentagon that looked at the Special Operations Command, which isyou know, Jeremy Scahill has been writing about it. It's the most secretive part of the U.S. military, does these raids all over the world. And they looked at their contracts, and they found that a lot of JSOC and special operations contractors were doing inherently governmental work; in other words, they were doing things that, by law, should only be done by the government. And there wasat that level, there was very loose oversight.
And I think that we need to look, as a country, and the government certainly needs to do this, and Congress certainly needs to do thisyou know, OK, it's fine to buy technology from corporations, if they need it, but using corporations to fill your ranks, you know, to provide personnelI mean, you go to these agencies, and it'syou know, it's not exactly like this, but it's very much like a NASCAR race where they have logos, corporate logos, all over themselves. I mean, that's what it's like inside the NSA. You've got CSC over here. You've got Northrop Grumman over here, Lockheed Martin and so on.
Do we need to have the private sector doing all this analysis? I think that's a very critical question to be asked. Do we want to have private corporations at the highest levels? And again, you know, if that's somethingthat's something that Congress, I believe, should really look at. And in the time that I've been covering this, as far as I recall, there's only been one single hearing in Congress on this issue of intelligence contractors, and it was three years ago, and it was a pathetic hearing. They actually called me in for some advice, and they actually called Tom Drake in for advice, too. I didn't know it at the time. And theyof course they didn't use any of our suggestions. I
AMY GOODMAN: The man they charged with espionage?
TIM SHORROCK: The man theythe man that washad been charged earlier with espionage.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, the U.S. government had been charged with espionage, who, of course, ultimately
TIM SHORROCK: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: those charges were dropped
TIM SHORROCK: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: and has been called by many a whistleblower.
TIM SHORROCK: Right. He's a true whistleblower. Andbut the pointyou know, I said, "You know, you ought to call in the chief executives of Booz Allen Hamilton and all these companies, so the American people can meet the secret leaders of the intelligence community." We know who Clapper is. We knewyou know, when Hayden was director, we knew who he was. But we don't know these people running the corporations.
AMY GOODMAN: McConnell?
TIM SHORROCK: McConnell, Michael McConnell, used to be the director of national intelligence. Before that, he was NSA director. And, you know, in between, he was at Booz Allen Hamilton running their military intelligence programs. Now he's back at Booz Allen Hamilton. So there's this continuous flow of people in and out of the private sector back into government. It's not even a revolving door; it's just a spending door. But basically, what we have is an intelligence ruling class, public and private, that hold the secrets. And I think, you know, when Bill Binney talks about the Stasi, the East German police that listened to everybody, you know, look at, we have hundreds of thousands of contractors with security clearances. We have hundreds of thousands of federal workers in, you know, Homeland Security and intelligence. We have a massive number of people that are monitoring other Americans. I think it's a very dangerous situation.

[Lauren Johnson]

Creighton's LONG writeup on Snowden boiled down to a couple of key paragraphs:

What so few understand at least in the front part of their minds, is that this isn't a reaction to 9/11, it's simply the next stage of 9/11. You can't fight this process without first addressing the core of their only remaining argument. Because at the core of the Twin Towers, you find a plan to see this transition laid out long long before any towers were hit and any buildings were demoed. It's all part of a greater design and it doesn't take much to see it, if you want to.

Why? Why Now?

Why? This is why… because in order to transition (there's that word again) an open society into a closed one (see Naomi Wolf for an explanation) you can do it one of two ways: Shock and Awe as in Libya and Iraq and Syria and Vietnam… or you can gradually shift the public mind via "hearts and minds" operations and false flag events to accept it as a "rational debate on the right balance"
One of those methods breeds violent insurgencies like Afghanistan, the other creates subservient sheep willing to turn their backs on their fellow Americans while they are systematically rounded up.

He goes on to say the Snowden operation is to deflect us from and prepare us for the coming hard summer as sequestration kicks in. http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2013/06/...d-why-now/

Sequestration? Wait. Isn't that like old news or something.

The hard times are on their way he says. Austerity is designed to do that. But wait look over here. Pay lots of attention to what was, up until now at leas,t a relatively trivial leak, compared to the fact that it all came out years ago. Why is it that NOW it is front page news? Why now?

In what I call am calling thought experiment, IF the Snowden Hero Phenomenon is a creation of the The Magicians, it is meant to deflect, confuse, divide, infuriate, demoralize a population, lead to new more restrictive laws, all of which comes under the rubric, strategy of tension.

The "why now" part of the equation is easy. Austerity is about to land on this country like it has on so many over the past 6 decades and in order to maintain control, they have to manage the uprising. This summer is going to be hard. Gold prices are already tumbling, world markets are out of control, ours is only being propped up by massive infusion of trillions of dollars keeping the Wall Street masters in the loot for a little while longer, but they are quietly pulling out before the next Great Depression.
They need a reason to put this country on lock-down. They are setting up to disarm those out there who they are worried about and they already know who you are.

The transition that they have been writing about since 2000 is upon us, at least the final stage of it, and it isn't going to be pretty.
Back in the day, like say Indonesia under Suharto a favorite dictator of ours and President Obama's mother's employer (actually it was USAID and the CIA) used to have to create lists of dissidents and left leaning rabble rousers the old fashioned way. He got the CIA to get USAID on the ground in the neighborhoods to make "micro loans" to folks, basically payouts to business minded folks who were paid to snitch on their leftist neighbors.

President Obama's mother did that job for a number of years while his step father was actually a general working for Suharto.
USAID would then take the lists and give them to their friends at the CIA who would then help Suharto to round them up and either "reeducate" or kill them.

Neoliberal economics demands such actions because it is so undemocratic, so unfair and exploitative, they have to have death squads to handle problems before they become problems.
That's how it used to word and it's no coincidence that Obama, born to this kind of system, is now the president.
The lists are collected other ways now. They have honeypot groups which feed your info along the chain but they also have stuff like "metadata"

The end result will be the same. The list even has a name… Main Core. For a while it has been used as a kind of blacklist for jobs and such and in the end it will be used to cut your credit off when we finally devolve into their wet-dream, the cashless society.
But for now, the Main Core list will be used in another way:

"We know all this already," I stated. He looked at me, giving me a look like I've never seen, and actually pushed his finger into my chest. "You don't know jack," he said, "this is bigger than you can imagine, bigger than anyone can imagine. This administration is collecting names of sources, whistle blowers and their families, names of media sources and everybody they talk to and have talked to, and they already have a huge list. If you're not working for MSNBC or CNN, you're probably on that list. If you are a website owner with a brisk readership and a conservative bent, you're on that list. It's a political dissident list, not an enemy threat list," he stated." shtf Plan

The author of the article mistakenly relates it to Marxism of course, it's always about "the communist Obama" for these guys, but he's not that far off base when he talks about the list targeting dissidents.

In a world were every effort is exerted to control what you think and how you see the world, what is the main threat? Terrorism? No. It's dissent. Rational, reasonable, logical dissent. It's a virus to those masters of the universe who would own the world and all of us in it.

That's why this "metadata' isn't about listening to you talk to your Muslim friends as the "confide" spiritual leanings your way. That's why it doesn't make a hill of beans difference if you are poor, working class or middle class (in fact the middle class with more education is historically targeted first… notice the war on public education and the "alternative truth tellers" who support that as well? It's not a coincidence).

If you suffer from the same virus WE ALL DO then you will be targeted until that virus is removed from you. That is why they monitor calls, emails, chats online, talks with friends in your living room, game discussions while playing with friends online…
… they want to know who will go along and who will not. That is what the metadata algorithms predict and that is why it's so important for them to continue to collect it.

[Jeffrey Orling]

'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

May a million Bradley Mannings and Edward Snowdens bloom.

Further up this thread, I asked the question Why now? This has been around for years. Why this leak now?

Scott Creighton just calls the whole thing a psyop and calls Snowden a "manufactured hero":

His argument is not strong; lots of speculation. But it should be considered. My suspicions are that he is on to something.[/QUOTE]

If this is jerk who blogs as Willy Loman or Everyman.. he is complete loser and fraud... not to mention narcissist.

[Adele Edisen]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/10/e...n-courage/

Auithor:Christopher H. Pyle teaches constitutional law and civil liberties at Mount Holyoke College. He is the author of "Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics and Getting Away with Torture" (book).
In 1970, he disclosed the U.S. military's surveillance of civilian politics and worked as a consultant to three Congressional committees, including the Church Committee.

Adele

[Peter Lemkin]

Julian Assange and Wikileaks revealed they had been in 'indirect communication' with Snowden.


Mr Snowden's case already echoes that of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who took refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London last summer after Swedish authorities issued an international warrant for his arrest amid allegations of sexual assault. He has been hiding there ever since.

Iceland's government of newly-elected conservative Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, may not be so generous this time around. While still untested, it is widely seen as closer to Washington than past administrations and less keen to foster the island country's cyber-haven image.

But Icelandic lawmaker Birgitta Jónsdóttir and International Modern Media Institute executive director Smari McCarthy released a statement on Sunday vowing to do all they could to help protect Mr Snowden, if he was able to make it to the shores of the tiny Nordic country.
'Whereas IMMI is based in Iceland, and has worked on protections of privacy, furtherance of government transparency, and the protection of whistleblowers, we feel it is our duty to offer to assist and advise Mr. Snowden to the greatest of our ability,' their statement reads, according to Forbes.com.

The pair added that they were already working on detailing the legal protocols required to apply for asylum and said they were seeking a meeting with the newly appointed interior minister Mrs Kristjánsdóttir as soon as possible to discuss whether an application for asylum, if made, can be processed as a priority.
In the Guardian interview, Mr Snowden suggested Iceland was his number one option.

He said his 'predisposition is to seek asylum in a country with shared values, The nation that most encompasses this is Iceland. They stood up for people over internet freedom.'

Empty and on the market: Edward Snowden's former home in Waipahu, Hawaii, which he fled last month for Hong Kong so he could leak details about the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs


ets: A neighbour said today that the garage at the home had boxes stacked floor to ceiling when Snowden was planning his escape

McCarthy told The Guardian that they have been following the story 'with morbid fascination' and Mr Snowden's mention of Iceland was their 'cue to take action.'
'We are working on the basis that if he were to arrive in Iceland we would have a plan in place and ready to go,' he said.

Mr Snowden needs to make his way to Icelandic soil or show up at one of its embassies in order to claim asylum. But if he managed that, he would have the Icelandic people's support, McCarthy said.
The government would have to weigh up enraging its major trading partner in its decision to claim or reject asylum to Mr Snowden.
'However, it would be rather embarrassing for the States if it cut ties with this small nation because it had complied with its human rights duties,' McCarthy said.
He would be free to live in Iceland while immigration authorities decide his case, which could take more than a year, according to Helga Vala Helgadottir, a lawyer specializing in asylum cases.
Iceland has an extradition treaty with the United States, but it is unclear whether it would cover any crimes that Snowden might be charged with.

Meanwhile, Ecuador is another possible ally. The country's embassy in London is currently harboring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
As the U.S. government hunts Mr Snowden, the American people are rallying for the outlaw, who is now on the run.

A petition has been registered with the White House demanding a pardon for the 'national hero' and has already garnered more than 27,000 signatures.

The petition, which calls for 'a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs' is aiming for 100,000 signatures by July, 9, 2013.
Another fan has set up a fundraising website for Mr Snowden whose bank accounts have been frozen. The Crowdtilt.com campaign is aiming to raise $15,000 for the whistleblower, in a bid to 'set a precedent by rewarding this type of extremely courageous behavior.' It currently stands at more than $7,300 with nine days to go.

Other supporters are holding placards for Mr Snowden today in New York's Union Square stating: 'Snowden is a hero. Stop the surveillance.'

Mr Snowden had been working at the NSA for the past four years as an employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton after working for the CIA as a technical assistant, specializing in computer security. His role allowed him access to classified material.
Since he revealed himself, Booz Allen, where Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was previously an executive, branded Mr Snowden's alleged actions 'shocking' and promised to conduct a full investigation into the matter.
In a statement, the firm said: 'Edward Snowden, 29, has been an employee of our firm for less than three months, assigned to a team in Hawaii.
'News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.'
Shares of Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. fell on Monday, on the back of the revelation.
Shares fell 61 cents, or 3.4 per cent, to $17.39 in midday trading, a slight recovery from a 5 per cent drop earlier in the session.

About 23 per cent of the $6 billion company's revenue, or $1.3 billion, came from U.S. intelligence agencies last year. The company has said in SEC filings that security breaches could materially hurt results.

Mr Snowden said he had raised his concerns with his superiors, but had been ignored.
He said: 'I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong. I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions but I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.
'My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.
'What they're doing (poses) an existential threat to democracy,' he added.

WHY HONG KONG? EXTRADITION TREATY GIVES SNOWDEN CHANCE OF AVOIDING BEING SENT HOME

Edward Snowden's decision to flee to Hong Kong is a gamble, but its free speech laws mean he does have a slim chance of avoiding being swept back to America.
Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty with the United States in 1997, just before Britain handed it back to China.
In it both agreed to send fugitives back and forth in the majority of cases, but there were also political exemptions negotiated at the time.
Hong Kong has the 'right of refusal when surrender implicates the "defense, foreign affairs or essential public interest or policy'' of the People's Republic of China.'
China itself has no extradition treaty with America at all.
Hong Kong officials also have the right to say no to extradition if they believe that the attempt is 'politically motivated'. This means that they will protect free speech if a person is being arrested just for their political opinions.
The United States may have already approached Interpol or its consulate in Hong Kong to start proceedings. They will use the Espionage Act to gain warrants for his arrest.
Hong Kong's authorities can hold Mr Snowden for 60 days, following a U.S. request that includes probable cause, while Washington prepares a formal extradition request.

[Peter Lemkin]

Its just a guess or hunch, but I'd bet that Snowden is already now in the embassy of either Iceland or Ecuador in Hong Kong. The Mail in London located his girlfriend and has nearly naked photos of her. She's a dancer trained in ballet, but working with an acrobatic's troop in Hawaii to make ends meet. They also tried to interview his parents who live in Pennsylvania. His step mother wouldn't say much of anything. As the reporters were leaving, two men who said they were FBI were approaching the same home...... My question is how is Snowden paying for anything now...he must have someone paying for him, as all of his bank accounts have been frozen. Stay tuned.

[Magda Hassan]

I hope he had the forsight to close his bank accounts cash in any assets and has a reserve of cash handy or in trust with a trusted friend or family member or in an off shore haven. Hong Kong used to be relatively friendly in that way but I don't know if it still is since it changed back to China. He'll probably be able to write a book if nothing else. But he does have IT skills that are useful to others.

[Peter Lemkin]

I hope he had the forsight to close his bank accounts cash in any assets and has a reserve of cash handy or in trust with a trusted friend or family member or in an off shore haven. Hong Kong used to be relatively friendly in that way but I don't know if it still is since it changed back to China. He'll probably be able to write a book if nothing else. But he does have IT skills that are useful to others.

If he's not very fleet of foot [i.e. already in some 'friendly' embassy requesting asylum] I fear he'll be writing that book from an American prison...if writing is allowed [it is NOT in a maximum security one, like Manning was held under! The American Gulag is very repressive - no reading, no writing and no pillows - sometimes no covers or clothes]. As for his IT and 'other' skills and knowledge, I did notice that Russia offered him asylum....anta:. I'm pretty sure he won't take them up on that....it certainly wouldn't 'look' good!

[Magda Hassan]

I did notice that Russia offered him asylum....anta:. I'm pretty sure he won't take them up on that....it certainly wouldn't 'look' good!

It been a good place for some people I have known who needed asylum (not Oswald). There is a huge South American population there and Afghani. Any port in a storm.

[Peter Lemkin]

I did notice that Russia offered him asylum....anta:. I'm pretty sure he won't take them up on that....it certainly wouldn't 'look' good!

It been a good place for some people I have known who needed asylum (not Oswald). There is a huge South American population there and Afghani. Any port in a storm.

It might be good for him personally, but would be a propaganda coup of gargantuan proportions for the US National Security State who'd say he was, all along, a Russian spy....and most American's would buy it...and ignore the larger issues he has risked his life, IMO, to expose.